Drones are Set to Conquer Oregon’s Skies. Are You Ready?

(Source: portlandmonthlymag.com)  

In a dusty vacant lot beneath the Fremont Bridge, Scott Edwards toggles switches on a bulky controller and watches his drone rise. About two feet across and equipped with four rotors, it looks nothing like the winged combat drones that loom over various theaters of war and, thus, the darker corners of the public imagination. In fact, its sleek, white surfaces recall nothing more exotic than an iPhone.

Edwards sends his vaguely insectile device whirring over the lot, careful not to fly over the small gathering of people watching his demonstration (staged for my benefit) from the perimeter. “There’s a body language to drones,” says the 29-year-old founder of the 300-plus-member hobbyist group PDX Drones. Hovering directly over someone’s head is considered creepy, a violation of embryonic 21st-century etiquette. Steer clear of personal airspace, Edwards has found, and most humans are brightly inquisitive about the technology. Other species can be even more enthusiastic. “Dogs love ’em,” he says, as a pit bull alternately chases and flees the bobbing, weaving flying robot. “It’s like a modern-day Frisbee.”

On this summer day in 2014, Edwards’s drone is a curiosity. In 10 years, such machines will almost certainly be humdrum, each device just one of thousands of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) buzzing about our airspace.

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